INFA-Special

New Delhi, 6 March 2007 

Christianity In India Today

NO CONFLICT WITH HINDUISM

By Eduardo Faleiro

(Former Union Minister)

During my last term in Parliament (1999-2004) I travelled extensively throughout the country to understand Christianity in India today. 

Asia is the cradle of all the great religions of the world and several of them were born in India.  The Asian religious psyche resonates with the perception of plurality and the consequent attitude of tolerance. Jesuit theologian Samuel Ryan asserts “Pluralism is a grace.  No one person, race, culture, language or religion can grasp and express exhaustively the will of God”.

Inculturation is the process by which a particular Church expresses its faith through the local culture.  In India, the purpose is to make the Church both authentically Indian and genuinely Christian.  At the Asian Synod of 1998 the bishops called for “divesting of the Western image of the Church in the liturgy, style of life, celebrations and trying to overcome the present image of a powerful, affluent and domineering institution”. 

Father George Gispert-Sauch, Emeritus Professor at the Vidya Jyoti Theological Seminary has published two volumes of the writings of Brahmabandhab Upadhyay.  Upadhyay was among the first if not the first to demand complete independence of India from the British Raj.  He died in jail in October 1907, a martyr of the freedom struggle.  Rabindranath Tagore, the poet wrote about him “Upadhyay was a sanyasi, a roman catholic, yet a vedantist.  He was powerful, fearless, self-denying; he wielded great influence on those who came near him.  He had a deep intelligence and an extraordinary hold on spiritual matters”.

When asked by a Census official whether he was a roman catholic or a protestant Upadhyay replied “Neither.  Put me down as an Indian catholic”.  The Upadhyay message, as contained in his writings is simple.  He was personally a Hindu by birth and culture, a Christian by faith and religion.  He was a Hindu Christian.  His culture and his faith were both valuable and not in conflict. 

There was no contradiction because Hinduism is a cultural reality.  Christianity is a supernatural revelation that can be expressed in any cultural garb. Fr. Gispert- Sauch believes that we should commemorate this year the death centenary of Brahmabandhab Upadhyay.---INFA